My Scrooge moment

I've said it for years, and I'll say it again: There is something inherently wrong with celebrating Christmas on the eve and ignoring it on Christmas day.

Want to open one present a day early? Fine. Open two? Whatever floats your boat. Celebrate twice, once with the in-laws? More power to you. Ignore the actual holiday? That's a problem.

December 25th is a mutually agreed upon date to celebrate Jesus' birth...not the 24th.

I know the argument, I know, it's an arbitrarily picked date to begin with. Jesus wasn't born on Christmas. But then, if I can't celebrate with the rest of my countrymen on the agreed-upon date, please allow me to pick my own date to celebrate.

But, since it is Christmas day today, have a very merry one.  Spend time with your friends and family, open up presents and remember the reason for the season.

The angles of advertising

We all know that advertisers lie to us, right?  Tricks abound to sell products.  Teeth look whiter with red lips, so the before is pink and the after red.  Facing the camera at an angle takes pounds away.  Black and dark colors thin you out.  Vertical stripes make you taller, leaner, whereas horizontal accentuate the girth.  Cut off the face, and the viewer identifies more with the individual in the picture (yet without a head, we lose interest in the product - hence, partial faces everywhere).

Usually, if you know what to look out for, like product placement in ads and movies, you can keep a leg up on them.  (Doesn't snickers cake sound good?)  Add to this growing pile of ways to lure the general public in, the art of Photoshop.  An extra few pounds?  We can stick that in right here.  Remove an inch off a leg?  Easy!  Want to remove a mole?  Done!  Cellulite?  Gone!  We've all seen, or at least heard, about photoshopping gone wrong...

However, sometimes advertisers just get lazy.  Take a look at what I found with my paper today... by all looks and appearances, a typical add for this revolutionary new product that will make you look 50 pounds thinner.  (Okay, 10...but 50 sounds better.)

Now, typically, I'd assume that there's photoshop and angles and optical illusions - which there are.  See how she's pulling her shirt down in the after picture?  The straight lines make her seem thin.  The before picture is slouching and sticking out her stomach?  The horizontal stripes appear to move outward around her midsection, creating that extra oomph we consumers need.

Notice anything else?

Take a good long look.  This isn't the same person!

Check out the jaw line....the hip/leg area...the protruding collar bones on the after girl.  The hair probably isn't even the same length and that's why it's tucked behind...apparently her boobs lost some luster as well, as they shrank in size but gained perkiness.

Okay, okay, I could give it the benefit of the doubt - she must have just gotten lipo (and a boob job) with the tummy tuck system.  It sucks the fat out of your whole body!  Yup, it's all the rage.  That is why you should buy the Tummylicious.

(Did they really think we wouldn't notice?  Too lazy to photoshop?)

Holidays: I'll never understand

I know time seems to go faster and faster as we get older.  Holidays come quicker and quicker.  When I walked through the doors at the Walmart, the Halloween items were staring at me with their ghoulish faces.  A bit early, wouldn't you say?

Image from Walmart.com

Eventually the thought hit me that Halloween is at the end of next month, so it's not too outlandish.  (Well, except for the costumes.  Apparently we all have to be loose women or vulgar men for the holiday*.)

But then I found this:

This, this is what I found...not just a shelf, or even just a row...but a section.  Christmas?  Already?  We're still three months and two major holidays out!  Speaking of which, we apparently have Halloween and Christmas...and no Thanksgiving items*.  Not one.  I'm sensing inequality here...it's like the month of November doesn't exist...

*A petting zoo with a "horse" on your man-parts?  The one eyed monster?  (I'll leave that image up to you.)  Snow White in the equivalent of a bikini with stockings?

**I didn't even see pumpkins that could double for Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving gets overlooked so often, though it's a great holiday where we get to celebrate family, be thankful...and stuff our faces!

Instant hot

Instant hot is a wonderful invention.  It allows us to make coffee, tea, soup...anything that needs to be hot, in a very fast manner.  Simply press the spigot and out pours boiling water.  The temperature is about 200 degrees F and drinks are appropriately hot.

How many times through the years have I heard "be careful, it can burn you?"  How many times do you think I've repeated that to someone else?  The manfriend rolled his eyes when I told him.  Like he would be that stupid...

Some of us apparently are.

Never, never, never take your eye off the spout.  Don't do it.  You take your eye and you glare that sucker down.  He can turn, he can spin...he can overflow or splash...he's a feisty fool.  Be in the zone, focused.  And be careful.

What you don't do is turn to contribute to the conversation at the same time you hit the spigot.  Nor do you attempt to turn on the water with one hand and reach for the tea ball with the other hand.

I, unfortunately, wasn't thinking, and as I turned to make a comment, my hand slid forward and directly under the spout as the water began to bubble...

The sensation wasn't pain exactly, more of a strong tingling shock that encompassed my hand and shot up my arm.  When I turned my head back around, I saw what was going on and immediately switched to cold water on my now-burnt skin.  That's when the actual pain set in.

This was Saturday afternoon that it happened.  I attempted to ignore the pain that shot into my fingers and up my arm, but alas, could not do so.  After a quick trip to Walgreens for burn ointment, it got a bit better. You'd think that a burn (no blistering) would go away quickly enough...

But here's my hand today.  This happened Saturday.  So, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...five days later, this is what the burn looks like...although you can't see the purple undertones and now the multicolored spots that look like they should have blistered.*  It's more painful than it looks.

Moral of the story:  Instant hot is hot.  (Well, der.)

*Alright, the picture totally looks like my hand is fine.  It's not the most representative picture.  But it's noticeable in person!  I needed better lighting.

Life's little absurdities

The gym:  It's a place where you go to sweat, to up your heart rate.  You lift weights.  Stretch.  Contort your body into weird positions in yoga.  Test your endurance in pilates.  The gym says "be healthy!"  When you over indulge, it's the hefty price you pay.

It's not the place you go to make eyes at a man or pick up a beautiful woman.  I mean, we're all sweaty there.  Or rather, we should be.  I'll never understand the girls who prance around half-clad in spandex and a bra in order to watch the men lift too-heavy weights in an effort to impress.  Those people never really do anything while at there.

I guess I can maybe see where they're coming from...people at the gym might be healthy and fit (that's a big might).  However, what I absolutely don't understand are the people who turn on food tv.  The Food Network.  Top Chef.  Ace of Cakes.  America's Best Desserts.  Are you trying to punish yourself?  I mean, when my regularly scheduled program is interrupted to show me a blizzard from Dairy Queen, I'm scrambling to change the channel before I get the craving for a blizzard...or french fries.  I don't want to stare at food, it's like punishing myself.  How do you gawk at amazing-sounding, sinfully high-calorie dishes for an hour while you're at the gym?

Or is that why you leave after only 30 minutes...?

Photo courtesy of photostock.